


The Best of a Bad Lot

by Shiny_n_new



Series: The Best of a Bad Lot [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Dark, Dark Character, Gen, Hostage Situation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-04
Updated: 2012-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-01 03:51:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shiny_n_new/pseuds/Shiny_n_new
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and Lestrade meet in different, dangerous circumstances, and Lestrade ends up in over his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this ](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/3114.html?thread=9024042#t9024042)prompt at the Sherlock BBC Kink Meme

_He’s too calm,_ was Lestrade’s first thought regarding Sherlock Holmes. Lestrade had seen people act composed in the face of impending arrest, either because they didn’t want to let on that they were guilty or because they were actually innocent. But no one was ever actually calm when they were being arrested.  
  
Holmes, though, he was looking down his nose at Lestrade like the DI was an insect he was about to pull apart, completely unconcerned about the taser aimed at his chest. Lestrade had wanted to bring a gun. Oh, how Lestrade had wanted to bring a gun. But his bosses had been firm on the matter. He wasn’t going to be given a gun just to bring a man in for questioning, especially when there was no reason to assume the man was going to be armed.  
  
Lestrade had wanted to argue that the man he was bringing in was suspected of vivisecting people, but he hadn’t bothered. He’d just triple-checked that his taser was working and stocked up on PAVA spray. Nobody would be tearing out any organs when their eyes were swelled shut and they were being electrocuted, after all.  
  
“I said put your hands on your head!” Lestrade ordered again, keeping the taser trained on Holmes’s chest while he reached down with his other hand to grab his handcuffs. He’d cornered the man in an alley near his flat, and it was sufficiently isolated for his purposes. There was only one way in or out, the other way blocked by a large trash skip. Holmes’ file had said he was a runner, and Lestrade didn’t want to go through the effort of chasing the man down.  
  
“Am I under arrest?” Holmes asked, smiling a small, cold smile. There was something eerie about the man, his pale skin and messy dark hair giving him an almost sinister look. Or maybe Lestrade was just projecting. Suspecting that someone was a serial killer was bound to make them look menacing.  
  
“You’re being brought in for questioning. Afterwards, we’ll see,” Lestrade said. Once it became clear that Holmes wasn’t planning to run or fight, Lestrade yanked the man’s hands into the cuffs and holstered his taser afterwards. Keeping a firm grip on the chain of the handcuffs, Lestrade pulled out his walkie-talkie. “This is Lestrade. Suspect’s been apprehended, bring the car around to the alley outside the laundromat.”  
  
He’d had the squad car parked at the end of the road, out of sight. Holmes lived on a quiet street and a police car would have attracted too much attention. The last thing Lestrade had wanted was Holmes being tipped off or some innocent gawker accidentally being hurt if Holmes got violent.  
  
“What am I being questioned about?” Holmes asked, glancing over his shoulder at Lestrade. He’d never lost that cold, smug smile.  
  
“I think you know.” That was standard enough police script, and the response was equally standard. Suspects would protest loudly that they had no idea what was going on, or they’d babble that there’d been a misunderstanding and that the police had the wrong person, depending on how innocent they wanted to seem.  
  
Holmes’ response, though, was definitely not in the usual script. He stopped in his tracks, twisting around to look at Lestrade. “Oh, I know. I just want to hear it out loud from you, Lestrade.”  
  
Lestrade narrowed his eyes and wondered if Holmes was one of _those_ killers, the kind that became famous for their total lack of remorse as much as their brutality. The files had said he was suspected to be a sociopath, after all. “A series of murders around central London. Now move.”  
  
At the same moment Lestrade pushed Holmes forward, a car pulled up at the mouth of the alley. Several things happened all at once: Lestrade saw that this car was most assuredly not the squad car; it was black and unmarked, a small sedan with darkly tinted windows. Holmes dropped suddenly to his knees and kicked backwards at Lestrade, pulling the DI off balance and forcing him to let go of the handcuffs. The car door opened and a man stepped out, wearing black sunglasses and holding something that looked like a very wide-barreled gun pointed straight at Lestrade.  
  
Lestrade would’ve liked to have said that he reacted to the situation with grace and aplomb, but what he actually did was hiss out “You little fuck!” and lunge at Holmes, sending them both sprawling onto the ground. The man in the car was obviously working with Holmes, and Lestrade assumed he wouldn’t risk shooting his cohort. With some snarling and punching, he managed to put Holmes between himself and the gunman.  
  
Holmes, confirming Lestrade’s suspicions that he was going to be an enormous pain in the arse, grabbed a hold of the DI and tried to haul him back into the gunman’s range. Lestrade was having none of that and lunged forward, biting down hard on the other man’s shoulder to keep them close together. He heard Holmes hiss, felt him punching at his ribs and ears to try and shake him loose, but Lestrade hung on like a pitbull. If he ended up dead, he was going to leave a bitemark on Holmes in the exact shape of his teeth, damn it. Let the skinny bastard explain _that_.  
  
A shadow fell over them and then there was a sharp pain in his shoulder, like a bee the size of a football had stung him. Lestrade’s arm immediately went numb, and Sherlock was able to roll away from him. The numbness spread rapidly through his body, and Lestrade found himself flopping back on the ground, staring up at the sky and unable to move.  
  
There was an honest-to-God dart buried in his shoulder, with little feathers at the end and everything, like Lestrade was a rhino that needed medical attention. He felt a bolt of panic shoot through him, because tranquilizers didn’t work like in the movies. Dosages had to be precisely calculated, because too little would be easy to shake off and too much could send the target into a coma.  
  
Lestrade had a feeling this dose wasn’t going to be too little.  
  
He tried to struggle to his feet, tried to roll over, tried to do _anything_. But his muscles felt loose and unresponsive and the world seemed to be spinning. Lestrade felt his eyes sliding closed against his will, and the last thing he was aware of was Sherlock Holmes standing over him, eyebrow raised.  
  
When Lestrade regained consciousness, he couldn’t help but groan. His head was pounding like it’d been used as the ball for rugby practice. As much as he’d have liked to keep pretending to be asleep and take stock of the situation, his body was having none of that. It was like the worst hangover he’d ever had. His muscles ached, his stomach was churning, and he had all the coordination of a dizzy toddler. He could barely roll himself onto his side.  
  
He cracked his eyes opened and winced at the light. He couldn’t tell if the room he was in really was abnormally bright or if he was just hypersensitive right now. He caught the vague outline of a table and chairs before he was forced to close his watering eyes and bury his face in the pillow. At least they’d put him on a bed, whoever ‘they’ were. That could be good or bad, but considering that Lestrade currently wanted nothing more than to curl up and go into a nice coma until his head stopped pounding, he was going to interpret the bed as a friendly gesture.  
  
The sound of a door opening was impossible not to notice, but Lestrade stayed still until the person approaching him blocked out the light. He cracked open his eyes to stare at the man who’d entered. The stranger was dressed in a suit, well-tailored and worth at least three months worth of Lestrade’s paychecks. He had an aura of friendly politeness that only people in absolute control of a situation ever quite managed.  
  
Lestrade had a little staring contest with the stranger, one that lasted all of ten seconds before his stomach violently rebelled against whatever they’d drugged him with. He leaned over the edge of the bed and vomited all over the stranger’s shoes, feeling very smug as he was doing it. He’d had a bloody awful day, after all. As he was passing out again, Lestrade could have sworn he heard the stranger mutter, “Typical.”  
  
And that was how Lestrade was introduced to Mycroft Holmes.  
***  
When Lestrade woke up again, he felt considerably better. He could move around without regretting ever being born, for one thing, and he felt much less nauseous. He could open his eyes without being blinded. Things were really looking up.  
  
He’d felt eyes on him since he’d regained consciousness and there was no way they hadn’t noticed he was awake. So with a sigh he turned his head to stare at the two men who’d been watching him for God knew how long. They were sitting in plush armchairs around a low wooden table, and a bit of squinting revealed that both the chairs and the table were bolted to the ground.  
  
Sherlock Holmes was perched like some kind of animal, his feet planted on the cushions and his hands resting on his folded knees. The look he was giving Lestrade reminded the DI of a cat who’d just spotted some tasty morsel. Lestrade fought the urge to shudder and just glared at Holmes before turning to look at the other man.  
  
“You’re the bloke I threw up on,” Lestrade said, his voice a rasp.  
  
“It’s made me so much fonder of you,” Holmes said, though he certainly didn’t look fonder.  
  
“Yes,” the other man said with a sigh. He was sitting with considerably more poise than Sherlock, as though this was just a polite meeting over tea. It was only the tight grip on the handle of the umbrella he held at his side like a cane that gave away anything he was feeling. “Mycroft Holmes.”  
  
“Ah,” Lestrade grunted out, forcing himself to sit up. The room spun for a moment, but he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and got himself righted. “You’re the brother that works in the government and keeps bailing his arse out.”  
  
Lestrade glanced around his prison cell, which really looked nothing like a prison cell at all. It was carpeted, for one, and not the cheap carpeting of Lestrade’s office at the Yard, either. The bed he’d been placed in was slightly bigger than a standard twin bed, and the sheets and blankets were about the same quality as the ones at his home. The walls were a creamy color, like very pale caramel, and the carpet was a shade of light beige as well. There were even bookcases (currently empty) up against the far wall. Combine that with the cozy armchairs and the table, and the whole room gave off the impression of being someone’s study or spare room.  
  
Except studies usually had things like windows, and the furniture wasn’t bolted to the floors and walls. And most studies didn’t have a camera in all four corners of the room, the small red lights blinking from the ceiling. And most rooms in general had a doorknob instead of a perfectly blank door with no way of opening it.  
  
“And I’m guessing, based on all of this, that you’re not actually a clerk in the Ministry of Defense,” Lestrade continued wryly. His voice was still a growl, and trying to talk louder hurt. It reminded him of his younger days, going to concerts and screaming until his voice broke.  
  
“A clerk?” Holmes said. “Mycroft, that’s adorable.”  
  
“I prefer not to draw attention to myself,” Mycroft said, not even glancing at his brother. “But yes, you’re correct.”  
  
“Good use of government resources, keeping your serial killing brother out of jail,” Lestrade said. He said it without any venom, just as a statement of fact, because he had a feeling that would hit harder. Lestrade normally wouldn’t have started out antagonizing the people holding him hostage, but the dislike for each other was practically radiating between the Holmes siblings. It was a pretty safe bet that Mycroft didn’t appreciate having to intervene in Sherlock’s hobbies.  
  
He could use that. It had been a long time since police training, but the intervening years had been filled with hostage situations and criminal interrogations and cop killers, and Lestrade paid attention throughout it all. He’d use all of that knowledge, now.  
  
He’d get out of this alive.  
  
“I haven’t been charged with anything,” Holmes said, folding his arms across his knees like some kind of gargoyle. He’d been watching Lestrade since the DI had woken up, and Lestrade had an eerie feeling that the man could read his thoughts. “That should be ‘alleged serial killing’.”  
  
“Considering that trying to arrest you got me kidnapped, I’d say there’s probably some truth behind the charges,” Lestrade said, rubbing at the arm he’d been shot in to try and relieve the residual sting.  
  
“Please, join us,” Mycroft said, gesturing to the third armchair that was obviously meant for Lestrade. “We have a lot to discuss.”  
  
Lestrade got to his feet woozily, his muscles still feeling a bit sluggish. They’d taken his coat, his tie, his belt, and his shoes and socks (potential weapons), so his bare feet sank into the carpet as he staggered over to the armchair. He wobbled into it, noticing that it was across the table from the both the Holmes brothers. So they were at least trying to present a united front.  
  
“Here, you’re probably very thirsty,” Mycroft said, handing Lestrade the plastic water bottle that had been sitting on the table. “The tranquilizer sometimes causes dry mouth.”  
  
Lestrade cracked open the seal on the bottle and took a long swig of water. It was warm, but it was exactly what his dry throat needed, and he felt a little more human when he put the bottle back on the table, half empty.  
  
“So you just drank something your kidnappers gave you?” Holmes said, tilting his head to the side in an almost birdlike movement. He was wearing a small smile that seemed completely at odds with the situation.  
  
“If you wanted to poison me or give me more drugs, you’d have already done it,” Lestrade said, crossing his arms across his chest. “I haven’t moved except to vomit for quite a while.”  
  
That, bizarrely enough, made Holmes’ smile widen. He said, “You aren’t any smarter than most people, but you’re not completely stupid and you reasoned out the situation instead of just attacking. It’s almost like you have a brain.”  
  
Lestrade just looked at him, because it almost seemed like there was something resembling a tiny compliment under the sneering.  
  
“Sherlock, much as I enjoy watching you deduce the people around you, this entire situation is your doing,” Mycroft said, sighing like a babysitter who was explaining, for the eighth time, that there would be no candies after dinner. “You could at least try to stay in the moment.”  
  
“ _This_ was completely unnecessary,” Holmes said, gesturing at the room around them as he said ‘this’. Up close, Lestrade could see that Holmes never seemed to stop moving. He tapped his fingers, shifted his weight, fidgeted, rolled his shoulders. “They’d have never been able to charge me with anything. At best, they’d have questioned me for a few hours and then let me go. Everything would be fine if you didn’t insist on being so heavy-handed every time the tiniest little thing goes wrong.”  
  
“I dunno,” Lestrade said, interrupting whatever it was that Mycroft had been about to say. “Depends on what we’d have found once we got a warrant for your flat.”  
  
Holmes laughed. “I’m not the kind of person who needs trophies to let the world know what I’ve done.”  
  
Lestrade noticed Mycroft’s hand tighten on the handle of the umbrella at his brother’s words. Mycroft noticed him noticing it. Their eyes met for a brief moment before Lestrade turned his attention back to Sherlock. “You didn’t seem to be denying anything when I was arresting you.”  
  
“What exactly led you to my brother as a suspect, Detective Inspector?” Mycroft asked, turning Lestrade’s attention back to him. “While Sherlock is often rash, he’s rarely careless when it comes to…things he takes an interest in.”  
  
The pause was miniscule, but Lestrade noticed it. Mycroft didn’t like what his brother was up to. But at the same time, Mycroft seemed so controlled, like every movement and tic and facial expression was carefully calculated. It was almost scary, and Lestrade wondered if he was supposed to see those little giveaways, if he was _supposed_ to start looking to Mycroft as a source of sanity.  
  
The Holmes brothers might have been playing Good Cop, Bad Cop with him. The thought made him want to laugh.  
  
“At first, we weren’t sure that the murders were the work of one person,” Lestrade said, crossing his arms and leaning back into the chair. “Out of five people, the only thing they seemed to have in common was that they all lived in London. Two middle-aged white males, one black twenty-five year-old male, one twenty-year-old Indian male, and one middle-aged white female. None of them knew each other, none of them were killed in extremely unusual ways.”  
  
“But?” Holmes leaned forward, his chin resting on his knees, his eyes intense.  
  
“They’d all had their Achilles tendons cut, to keep them from running,” Lestrade said. He could see it all in his mind, both the crime scenes and the crime scene pictures. The marks on the bodies, the blood pooled around their ankles. He’d seen a pattern there, subconsciously. Something in his gut had told him that these weren’t just random acts of violence. “A small knife, not serrated, probably a scalpel. All the victims were strangled. That was the cause of death for two of them. For the others, it was probably to stun them or scare them.” Lestrade let some of the disgust he felt show on his face as he added, “Or maybe it was just foreplay. You’d know better than I would.”  
  
“That is unusual, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate a serial killer,” Mycroft said, voice and face as calm as if they were discussing this over tea. “It could be gang activity.”  
  
Lestrade snorted. ‘Gang activity’ was what the police told the press when they had no clue who was responsible for something. “Yeah, could have been. But digging a little deeper revealed something all the victims did have in common.”  
  
Holmes smiled, and Lestrade couldn’t help but think, _My, what big teeth you have_.  
  
“Oh?” Mycroft asked, like he didn’t know every detail of it.  
  
“They’d all been suspected of crimes,” Lestrade said, not taking his eyes off of Holmes, who was just _smiling_ at him. “Three of them had been arrested. None of them had been convicted. Nasty stuff. Two murderers, two pedophiles, one serial rapist.”  
  
“My brother is hardly a vigilante,” Mycroft said. “Anyone who knows him would tell you he has very little concern for anyone besides himself.”  
  
Lestrade suddenly understood that this was practice. The first trial run for the police station and later the courtroom, with Mycroft as a witness for the defense. He’d be the hardworking and honest big brother, who’d talk about how his brother might not be a nice person, but he certainly wasn’t capable of the crimes he’d been accused of. The Holmes brothers were getting started early, plus testing Lestrade to see what kind of case the Yard had built up against Sherlock.  
  
 _You magnificent bastards_ , Lestrade thought. He leaned forward, keeping eye contact with Holmes the whole time. “This wasn’t a vigilante. Vigilantes want the world to know what they did and why they did it. They want everyone to know what bad people their victims were. These people were just killed and left on the streets. This was someone killing for their own reasons, who wanted to justify their actions to themselves. ‘She’s a murderer. He’s a pedophile. They deserve what happens to them’.”  
  
“I’m far from the only killer in this city, Lestrade,” Holmes said. The smile had dropped off his face, replaced with a sharp kind of interest. “How did you find me?”  
  
“Once we knew it was a serial killer, we looked at the first murder,” Lestrade said, refusing to speed up his story to suit Holmes’ needs. They all knew the end of this particular tale. “Serial killers tend to be a little sloppy on their first kill, a little unsure. They don’t have things down to a pattern yet, and they’ll hunt in familiar territory. The first body, Darrel Wellesly, was found in a neighborhood synonymous with drugs. No one went there unless they were buying or selling. We checked out the locations of the other bodies, and lo and behold, they were all found in areas with high drug traffic. So our killer was someone familiar with the drug underworld, who wouldn’t stick out, who knew the places where there wasn’t a police presence.”  
  
“Cocaine,” Holmes said, by way of an explanation.  
  
“It’s a hell of a drug,” Lestrade said. “The bruises on the necks of the victims gave us a good idea of how tall the killer was. So we pulled the arrest records for drug users around that height.”  
  
“That’s hundreds of people, at least,” Mycroft said, crossing his legs and folding his hands in his lap. He didn’t seem perturbed that Lestrade and his brother were having a very intense staring contest with each other.  
  
“It was,” Lestrade said. “But your brother scared the hell out of his arresting officers and the department shrink, who pegged him as a psychopath, so he got a nice little note on his file.”  
  
“That’s profiling,” Mycroft admonished, like Lestrade was a naughty boy who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  
  
“Maybe,” Lestrade said, finally leaning back in the chair. “But it’s a weird coincidence that the killings started right around the same time as your brother was released from court-ordered rehab.”  
  
“Still merely coincidental. Hundreds upon hundreds of people were released from prison or rehab centers at the same time.”  
  
“And witnesses describe seeing a tall, pale man with messy black hair and a long black coat around the crime scenes,” Lestrade finished with a small smile.  
  
Both the Holmes brothers went still. It was a tiny thing, more noticeable in Sherlock than in Mycroft, but it was still there.  
  
“There weren’t any witnesses,” Sherlock said finally, his eyes narrowed like he thought Lestrade was cheating.  
  
“Not to the murders, no,” Lestrade said. “But homeless people aren’t inanimate objects, you know. They make plenty of observations too, and they saw someone who matches your description leaving the locations where the bodies were found.”  
  
“Homeless people,” Sherlock murmured, his eyes darting away from Lestrade for the first time and his fingers tapping quickly along the arm of his chair. “I’ll have to keep that in mind.”  
  
“So, we were looking for a serial killer who matched Sherlock Holmes’ height and physical appearance, who was familiar enough with the drug scene to know that he wouldn’t be interrupted when he brought his victims to the location where he’d kill them. The murders started five months ago, the same time your brother was released from rehab. His drug tests have come back clean, meaning he’s found something else to occupy his time. He’s believed to be a psychopath.” Lestrade spread his hands. “So there you go.”  
  
“Not a single bit of that would bring you a conviction,” Mycroft said.  
  
“Which is why we were only bringing him in for questioning.” Lestrade said. He looked at Sherlock. “So, I’ve got to ask-”  
  
“They were all guilty,” Holmes said, steepling his fingers. “It was obvious to anyone with half a brain, so I’m not surprised that Scotland Yard failed to convict any of them. Regina Evart had killed two people since you let her go. Martin Jones raped a woman three weeks before I killed him. As you no doubt discovered when you searched his home, Peter McCrae’s computer was filled with hundreds of pornographic pictures of children, all under the age of ten. The world is hardly going to miss them.”  
  
“But your brother’s right,” Lestrade said. “You aren’t a vigilante.”  
  
“How do you know?” Holmes asked, the small smile creeping back onto his face.  
  
“Your tone didn’t change at all when you were talking about the things your victims had done,” Lestrade said. “Maybe you’re just a great actor, I don’t know, but either way, you don’t seem to give a damn that these were bad people who wouldn’t be punished for their crimes. So why kill them?”  
  
Holmes tapped his fingers together, still smiling, and glanced at his brother. It was a sly, mean glance. “I’ve been so bored since I’ve been forced into a life of sobriety by Big Brother. So, so bored. I wanted to see what it was like.”  
  
Mycroft didn’t react at all, and Lestrade had to hand it to the man. He had a hell of a poker face.  
  
“And so what was it like?” Lestrade asked, back ramrod straight.  
  
“Much, much easier than I thought it would be,” Holmes said, and there was suddenly nothing small about his smile at all. It stretched across his face and practically curled off the edges. “I expected more of a struggle, more difficulty. But it was easy enough to lure them in, and they died just as easily. But it was interesting to watch. Their little variations were fascinating.”  
  
“Why’d you start cutting them open?” Lestrade asked. The armchair creaked beneath him as he shifted, a painful reminder that he wasn’t in an interrogation room. He and Sherlock might have been facing each other over a table, but this was far from the sterile, secure halls of the Yard.  
  
“I haven’t had the opportunity to examine organs while they were still functioning,” Holmes said, like this was an obvious answer. “It seemed wasteful to just sit around waiting for them to bleed out when I could make use of them.”  
  
Lestrade tightened his lips, because if he spoke now he’d lose all of his composure. After a moment, he said, “So.”  
  
“So,” Holmes repeated mockingly, still nearly vibrating with energy.  
  
That irritated Lestrade, and so he turned his attention to Mycroft and asked, “What happens now?” He had a feeling he wouldn’t like the answer, but he wasn’t going to pussyfoot around the question. If he was going to die, he wanted to know it.  
  
“That depends entirely on you, Inspector,” Mycroft said.  
  
“I don’t take bribes,” Lestrade said, putting iron into his voice and coupling it with the sudden surge of anger he felt. Fuck these people for thinking they could drug him and kidnap him and then just pay him off like he was an obedient puppy who’d behave if he got a treat. The gangly pissant sitting across from him murdered people for fun, and Lestrade wasn’t going to overlook that.  
  
“But you haven’t heard the offer,” Mycroft said, voice the persuasive hum of someone who was sure they were going to get their way.  
  
“And I don’t care,” Lestrade said, raising his chin. He wasn’t going to live as a dirty cop. He wouldn’t be in Mycroft Holmes’ pocket. He’d die first.  
  
“Hmm,” was all Mycroft said in response.  
  
“Can I talk with you alone?” Lestrade asked him. “Since you’re obviously the one in charge here.”  
  
 _That_ made Holmes bristle like a pissed off cat, and the sight of it almost made Lestrade smile. Holmes was too cocky by far, and taking him down even the tiniest peg was probably the biggest victory Lestrade was going to score today, unless he could convince Mycroft to let him go.  
  
“If you’d like,” Mycroft said with a polite smile. “Sherlock, would you mind?”  
  
Holmes stood up, sneering. “If you’re looking to my brother for mercy, you’re more of an idiot than I thought.”  
  
He stalked over to the door and knocked on it sharply three times. A small panel that had blended in seamlessly with the door slid open at eye level, and the guard on the other side stared at Sherlock for a moment. The door swung open then, and Lestrade caught the gleam of rifles aimed into the room. Sherlock shoved his way past the guards, murmuring irritably under his breath, and the door closed behind him with a loud clang.  
  
“Inspector, I don’t want to give you false hope,” Mycroft said, fingers tapping at the handle of his umbrella. “If you won’t stop investigating my brother, I’m afraid I can’t let you go.”  
  
“You can’t keep me here,” Lestrade said, trying to keep his hands from tightening on the armrests of the chair. “At least three dozen Yarders know I was bringing Sherlock in for questioning. They know his name. They’ll know that I disappeared _while_ I was bringing him in for questioning. They’re probably looking for me right now, and if they aren’t, then you’ve got to know that whatever excuse you’ve given them can’t last forever.” Lestrade leaned forward, trying to make the man see reason. “I know you don’t want to let us take him. He’s your brother, I understand. But we can get him the help that he needs.”  
  
Mycroft smiled at him with infinite pity. “Inspector, there’s no one who can help my brother.”  
  
“You can’t just let him run around doing anything he wants!” Lestrade protested, his temper slipping a bit. “He’s killing people.”  
  
“Nevertheless,” Mycroft said. “He is my brother.”  
  
Lestrade stared at him, some of his anger and disgust creeping across his face.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Mycroft said. “I know you doubtlessly think I’m a terrible person for this-”  
  
“I don’t think you’re a bad person,” Lestrade said.  
  
Mycroft’s pleasant mask never dropped as he said, “Well, that’s certainly-”  
  
“But I know you’re a person who does bad things,” Lestrade continued. That was enough to make Mycroft narrow his eyes. His interested expression was eerily similar to his brother’s. “We both know that I’m not someone you can just make disappear. They’ll go after your brother, and I’m sure you can stop them, but you don’t want to.”  
  
Mycroft said nothing.  
  
“One day it won’t be some pedo he’s going after,” Lestrade said. “He’ll stop feeling like he has to justify it, and it’ll be someone completely innocent.”  
  
“No one is completely innocent,” Mycroft said, still damnably calm.  
  
“So that means your brother’s got the right to cut them open and play around with their organs?” Lestrade said, a growl edging into his voice. “The best thing in the world would be to let me arrest him, Mr. Holmes. He needs help and he needs to be kept away from innocent people. The more you protect him, the more people are going to suffer. He needs to be put away.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Mycroft said, and he sounded more sincere than he had in their entire conversation. He stood up. “I truly am sorry, Detective Inspector. But I can’t allow that.”  
  
“Then I’m going to be one more person who dies because of him,” Lestrade said. Because as determined as he was to live, those were the facts if he couldn’t convince the Holmes’ to let him go.  
  
Mycroft said nothing, turning abruptly on his heel and rapping sharply on the door. The panel slid open, the door was unlocked, and Mycroft left. He didn’t look back once, and Lestrade wasn’t sure how to interpret that. Guilty conscience, or no conscience at all?  
  
  
Lestrade sat in the chair for about five minutes after that, trying to work out if someone else was going to come in. Either one of the Holmes to try and negotiate with him, or a pack of bruisers sent in to ‘negotiate’ with him. Once it was clear that no one was coming in, either to talk or to work him over, Lestrade started pacing around the room trying to find anything he could use to his advantage.  
  
There wasn’t much. The furniture was securely bolted, and the screws were too tightly embedded to wriggle them lose. The wood of the furniture was sturdy; there was no way Lestrade could splinter or break it without the cameras noticing. The cameras were too high for him to reach, and they were the smooth, round kind that meant Lestrade couldn’t throw a blanket or his shirt over them.  
  
Lestrade sank down onto the bed tiredly after his inspection of the room, feeling nauseous. He wanted to scream, to throw himself at the door and the walls and knock the Holmes brother’s teeth down their smug throats. But none of that would help him get out alive. He laid down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and trying to plan.  
  
Scotland Yard wasn’t going to be fooled by Mycroft Holmes forever. Lestrade was confident that he had enough friends there who’d know that something was wrong when he didn’t show up for work by at least the day after tomorrow (he’d never been out sick for longer than two days, and he always called in instead of sending e-mails), and he was sure that Mycroft wouldn’t be able to bribe them. Threaten them, maybe, but Lestrade had faith in his team and his fellow Met officers, and knew they could figure out a way to save themselves and Lestrade.  
  
As for his rivals on the force, well…some of them were probably bribable, but others would resist that just as hard as Lestrade had. Lestrade had a brief, entertaining daydream about DI Gregson punching Mycroft in the head. So help might also come from unexpected quarters.  
  
But it wasn’t in Lestrade’s nature to sit around waiting for help. He had to figure out his own escape plan. The only problem was that none was immediately obvious. It was clear to Lestrade that Mycroft had a core of pure steel and a laser-focus on his goals, whatever those goals were. It would be hard to manipulate him. Similarly, Sherlock wasn’t the type of killer who murdered to make himself feel big and powerful. It was something else that drove him, and Lestrade would have to figure that out before he could figure out how to twist Sherlock.  
  
Lestrade sighed, feeling sluggish despite the adrenaline. So he probably still had the drug in his system, then, whatever the hell it was. He couldn’t see much of a reason in trying to force himself to stay awake. He was in for a long wait, he didn’t have anything to eat or drink, and there was literally nothing of interest in this room. Some sleep might do him good. With that thought in mind, he let his eyelids fall closed.  
  
He woke up to a knife at his throat and Sherlock Holmes staring down at him.


	2. Chapter 2

"You were due to have something to eat,” Holmes said. He’d moved swiftly once Lestrade was awake, pinning down the policeman’s arms with his elbows while Lestrade was still sleepy and disoriented. “I thought we ought to have a conversation.”  
  
Lestrade’s eyes flicked from the knife at his neck (nothing but a gleam in the bottom of his vision, but a sharp and deadly line on his skin), to the table where a stryofoam tray sat (the contents still steaming and smelling vaguely of chicken), to the door (bolted closed), and to the cameras (watching, the lights blinking continuously). Then back to Holmes’ face, so close to his own that he felt the younger man’s breath when he exhaled.  
  
“Holmes-”  
  
“Call me Sherlock, ‘Holmes’ is what people call my brother.”  
  
“Fine. _Sherlock_. I talk a lot better without knives at my throat,” Lestrade said, trying not to give away just how damned afraid he was. He was a copper, he was used to keeping his head even though his instincts were screaming panic, he could do this.  
  
“This is what you wanted to know,” Sherlock said, cupping Lestrade’s chin in his hand almost gently and pushing his head back to expose his throat. Sherlock was a surprisingly easy weight to bear, and Lestrade wondered if there was anything to him besides skin, bones, and his giant brain. “What it was like for them in their very last moments, looking up at me.”  
  
Lestrade laughed, a harsh and humorless sound, and asked, “What was the goddamn bloody point of dragging me down here and talking to me if you were just going to kill me like this?”  
  
“Mycroft thinks you can be reasoned with,” Sherlock said, and he was swaying back and forth a little, like a cobra being charmed. “He still doesn’t understand that some people would rather die than crawl at his feet. But I understand you.”  
  
“Do you, now?” Lestrade grinds out. He has to figure out how to shove this skinny little lunatic off of him before he gets his throat slit, but the knife (or maybe the scalpel, the one Sherlock had been killing with) was pressed up against his skin and Sherlock’s bony knees dug into his arms so hard that it hurt. He was pinned. He’d been pinned since they’d knocked him out in the alley, really, so maybe it was fitting that Sherlock was physically pinning him now. But God, Lestrade wanted to scream.  
  
“You aren’t smart enough to do what’s good for you,” Sherlock said, smiling that bizarre little smile of his. “Mycroft has been looking for ways to break you. Some elegant solution, the key to your lock. He’s missing the forest for the trees. You’re where you are today because you’re mulishly stubborn. You inspire loyalty in the people who work for you, partially because you try to repay that loyalty as best you can. You’re firmly of the opinion that power is a responsibility and a high position needs to be lived up to. You never give up. Ever.”  
  
“You got all that from my government files?” Lestrade asked.  
  
Sherlock laughed. “I got all of that from our conversation earlier. And so did Mycroft. He’s looking through your files now to try and find something that will change reality. He thinks if he digs hard enough, you suddenly won’t be exactly the type of person he has trouble with.” Sherlock sounded entirely sincere when he added. “He’ll be so happy when he finds out he’s wrong and there’s no reasoning with you.”  
  
“Happy?”  
  
“Mycroft always loved getting new toys,” Sherlock said, and that sent a bolt of pure ice shooting down Lestrade’s spine.  
  
“So what, you figured you’d come and break his toy before he got the chance?” Lestrade said, jerking away from Sherlock as best he could. It moved his neck a whole two centimeters away from the knife, and Sherlock was quick to close the distance again.  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
Lestrade shuddered without meaning to, his pulse hammering against the edge of the knife. Sherlock’s eyes had gone flat and cold and curious, like a scientist looking down at something squirming on a microscope slide. Lestrade knew that meant nothing good for him. He had to distract Sherlock, back him off whatever edge he’d suddenly come to until either Sherlock decided not to kill him or Mycroft intervened.  
  
But Christ, he didn’t have clue how to do that. Sherlock seemed to know everything about him from just a glance, whereas Lestrade had read through everything the Met had on the man and could only guess at how his mind worked. _Think, goddamit_ , he ordered himself. What did he know for sure about Sherlock?  
  
The man had an ego larger than the sun. He liked to talk, and he liked figuring out how people worked. He didn’t seem to have any shame about the crimes he’d committed. There had to be something he could use, something to-  
  
Ah. There.  
  
“How did you know?” Lestrade asked, and he almost relished the quicksilver look of confusion that passed across Sherlock’s face.  
  
“How did I know about what?”  
  
“Your victims. How did you know they were guilty? You talk like you know for sure, but the Yard couldn’t find enough to convict them.”  
  
“Oh please, it was obvious for all of them,” Sherlock sneered. And quite suddenly he was almost ranting about the first victim’s flat and the way he’d worn his gloves and a million other tiny details about the man.  
  
The strangest thing about it all was that it made _sense_. Most of it wouldn’t be enough to convince a jury (any competent defense attorney could spin a million plausible explanations for the strange behavior), but damned if it wouldn’t have put the police on the right track of something that could have netted a conviction. Sherlock was right when it came to his observations about his victims.  
  
That scared Lestrade more than having the knife to his throat. Sherlock Holmes wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t even delusional. It somehow seemed so much worse to know that the man on top of him wasn’t out of his mind.  
  
But Lestrade’s gambit seemed to have worked, at least. Sherlock was too busy talking to stare at Lestrade like a butcher deciding where to cut. Once or twice he even took the knife away from Lestrade’s throat entirely to gesture with it, letting the DI see that it was indeed a scalpel. Lestrade waited until Sherlock was midway through explaining how the state of the second victim’s shoes indicated that he was planning an assault before asking, “If you’re gonna lecture me on how to do my job, can you at least get off of me? That food smells pretty good.”  
  
Sherlock looked down at him. “What? Oh.” He sighed, like Lestrade was being a great bother. “Fine, fine. Anyway, the shoes he’d bought were generic and cheap. Why would someone who was willing to spend a hundred pounds on another pair of shoes buy cheap footwear? He was concerned about leaving traceable footprints, obviously. So-”  
  
And that was how Lestrade ended up sitting on the bed and eating some (actually quite good) chicken cordon bleu and green beans while watching Sherlock pace around the room and explain how he could figure out everything about someone with just a glance.  
  
“You’d have been brilliant as a cop,” Lestrade sighed at the end of one explanation, and he wasn’t even being sarcastic. How many lives might have been saved if Sherlock had been forced to use his insight to help people?  
  
“Please,” Sherlock snorted, the very idea clearly beneath him. “And deal with all of the tedious business of getting warrants and letting people have lawyers around when they’re questioned?”  
  
“That ‘tedious business’ is the law, actually.”  
  
“It’s boring and interferes with my process,” Sherlock said, waving a hand like he was shooing off an annoying insect.  
  
Mycroft chose that moment to step into the room, hands folded behind his back and expression impassive. The mood instantly went from ‘not friendly, but not deadly’ to ‘ice cold.’  
  
“I see you brought the Inspector a meal,” Mycroft said in an even tone. “How thoughtful of you.”  
  
Sherlock’s smile was positively devious as he answered, “You know better than anyone that I’m always worried about other people.”  
  
“I’d like to have a word with him, if you please,” Mycroft said. Despite everything, Lestrade was impressed by how Mycroft could make both a polite request and an unmistakable order at the same time.  
  
Sherlock breezed out of the room without so much as another word, looking unbearably smug. Lestrade wondered what the scrawny bastard thought he’d accomplished, but quickly focused his attention on Mycroft as the door closed behind Sherlock.  
  
The elder Holmes was impeccably dressed, just like he’d been the last time Lestrade had seen him, but he was in a different suit. That made Lestrade wonder how long he’d been locked up here. Mycroft wasn’t carrying the umbrella this time, but besides that, he looked just as calm and collected as he had in their last meeting.  
  
Lestrade stared at him, something tickling at the back of his mind. He’d been directing so much of his attention towards Sherlock for the last fifteen minutes, making sure the younger man didn’t suddenly lunge at him with that scalpel. The tense, panicky moments of trying to get Sherlock rational and non-murderous had made Lestrade forget that stray thought he’d had right as he’d woken up: Mycroft. Those cameras had to have caught Sherlock entering the room, had to have seen that he’d pinned Lestrade to the bed. Had to have seen the knife. _Mycroft_ had to have seen all those things.  
  
And it had taken him fifteen minutes to even bother coming down to call Sherlock off, long after the danger had passed.  
  
“You’re a little late,” Lestrade said, jaw tight.  
  
“Are you all right?” Mycroft asked.  
  
“Oh yeah, it’s all aces over here,” Lestrade growled out, temper sparking. “Just enjoying being kidnapped and nearly having my throat slit while you sit in your posh office and watch it all happen. Were you hoping he’d do it quick and then I wouldn’t be your problem anymore?”  
  
Mycroft didn’t answer, and that spurred Lestrade on, his fury rising. He didn’t lose his temper often, but this seemed like a prime occasion. He threw his styrofoam tray at Mycroft (more out of frustration than any desire for it to hit him. Sure enough, Mycroft stepped deftly out of the way) and leapt to his feet. Even if Lestrade had been wearing shoes, Mycroft still would have been taller than him, but Lestrade hardly cared and got in his face anyway.  
  
“If you’re going to kill me, Holmes, just do it! Just do it, and don’t _hope_ your brother will finish me off in some fit of insanity! I’m not going to roll over and let you get your way no matter how rich you are and what you threaten to do to me, so if you’re going to kill me, just kill me!”  
  
Lestrade was panting by the end of it, nostrils flaring a little, and he could feel the heat in his face. Mycroft’s expression was closed off, inscrutable, his posture a little more rigid than before. When he spoke, his voice was clipped. “What exactly offends you so much about the idea of simply accepting a deal with me?”  
  
God, what _didn’t_ offend him about it? The idea that his professional pride, his loyalty to the badge, and the trust people put in him because of it were all up for sale made the bile rise in his throat. The idea of just letting a murderer walk free was physically repulsive. And of course, there was the memory of Sergeant Hancock.  
  
Lestrade had just been a beat cop when Sergeant Hancock was accused of taking bribes and tampering with evidence, but he’d been in and out of the interrogation room when they were questioning the man, bringing in files and coffee (such was the life of a rookie cop). He’d been bringing in several fresh cups when one of the men questioning Hancock had said, “You’re being awful cooperative for a dirty cop.”  
  
Hancock had been in his forties, but looked like he was at least mid-fifties. The bags under his eyes had been deep purple, almost black, and the way his clothes didn’t quite fit spoke of a recent weight gain. His hands had shook when he reached out for his coffee. He’d looked like a man close to cracking, and his answer to the unspoken question had been, “I just want it to be fucking over. Once you’re bought, you have to stay bought and you lie to everyone and I just want it to _stop_.”  
  
The exhausted desperation in the man’s voice had stuck with Lestrade even as all the other details of the case had faded. He wouldn’t let himself become that. Death would be kinder on his mind and on his conscience. Lestrade had a sudden, unbidden flash of himself sitting in his flat, rumpled and unshaven, an open and nearly empty whiskey bottle on the table in front of him, right next to a handgun pilfered from the Met. That Lestrade was trying to work up the courage to just pull the trigger, to just make it all stop. That Lestrade had reached the end of his proverbial line.  
  
He’d never become that Lestrade.  
  
Mycroft must have read some of that in his face, or maybe he’d read all of it. He was a Holmes, after all, and if he could do anything close to what Sherlock apparently could then Lestrade was an open book to him. Either way, Mycroft had a distinct look of disappointment on his features.  
  
“Very well, Detective Inspector,” Mycroft said, voice cool. “If you’ll excuse me, I have arrangements to make. Perhaps you can mull over the fact that your stubbornness led to this.”  
  
“Your brother being a murderer led to this!” Lestrade called out as Mycroft left, trying to mask the shiver that had gone down his spine at the way the man had said ‘arrangements’.  
  
That couldn’t possibly mean anything good.  
  
Lestrade was left alone again, and he paced the room like a caged animal, nervous and jumpy. His gaze kept going from the cameras to the door and back again. What had Mycroft meant by arrangements? Something to make Lestrade’s death look natural? Getting rid of whatever files Scotland Yard had on Sherlock? Just because he was resigned to his fate, didn’t mean he couldn’t be worried too.  
  
Eventually, though, his body’s needs took precedence over his mind’s franticness. He’d been asleep for most of his stay in where ever the hell this was, but eating had finally made him aware of the fact that he needed to piss. Lestrade sighed and made his way to the door, knocking sharply on it.  
  
“Hey!” he called out to the guards that were doubtlessly on the other side of the door. “Hey, I need to use the loo.” There was no response, and Lestrade sighed. “I will piss all over this carpet, I swear to God.”  
  
If they didn’t care about his discomfort, someone somewhere would probably be irritable at having to replace the carpeting.  
  
The panel in the door slid open, and a pair of eyes scrutinized Lestrade for a moment. A gruff voice called out, “Step back from the door and put your hands on your head.”  
  
Lestrade obeyed, and the door swung open to reveal three men. They were all a head taller than Lestrade, considerably wider about the shoulders, and armed with machine guns. Any vague thoughts about escape quietly died in Lestrade’s mind at the sight of those guns and the professional way the men held them.  
  
“Step out of the room,” ordered the shortest of the men, keeping his gun trained on Lestrade the whole time. None of the men were nervous, but they were all alert as Lestrade stepped from the room onto the bare tile floor of the hallway beyond. It was as beige and featureless as ‘his’ room, and equally lacking in windows or convenient weapons. His hands still folded on his head, he let himself be herded a few meters down the hall to a clear, glass door.  
  
The room beyond it was tiled and had a large drain in the center of the floor, which made Lestrade immediately wary until he realized that it was a loo after all. There was a showerhead attached to the left wall, and a toilet and sink on the right. No privacy, though. The whole room was visible from the door, with nary a dividing wall or shower curtain to give him some dignity. Lestrade just sighed and tried to pretend he was somewhere else. At least working for the Yard had squashed most of his squeamishness.  
  
There was no mirror, but he caught sight of his reflection in the water taps on the sink. His hair stuck out at dozens of angles, the rounds of sleeping on it without any brushing in between leaving it in complete disarray. The stubble on his cheeks was even thicker than he’d anticipated, and he scratched at it a little nervously.  
  
They led him back to his room, and Lestrade found himself stalling at the entrance, caught in a sudden, desperate need not to go back inside. The room seemed terribly small all of the sudden, the walls close enough that he could stand in the middle of the room and touch them all. Intellectually, he knew it was just a natural reaction, that the room wasn’t actually any smaller or more cramped, but he couldn’t make his feet move forward anyway.  
  
One of the men hit Lestrade in the back with what felt like the butt of his gun, sending the detective sprawling forward onto the floor. He stayed still as the door closed behind him, not trusting himself to move. Finally, he pulled himself to his hands and knees and leaned against one of the chairs, trying to choke down the bile rising in his throat.  
  
“I want to go home,” he murmured softly, to no one in particular. It didn’t help the situation at all, but it did make him feel a bit better to finally say it out loud.  
  
Hours passed. At least, Lestrade thought hours had passed. His sense of time had been shot to hell in this windowless room, which he knew was deliberate on Mycroft’s part. He paced the length and width of the room over and over, counting out the steps and then recounting just to be sure. He did crunches and pushups when the monotony of walking had gotten to be too much, and he did that until his arms burned and his stomach ached fiercely. He laid down in the bed, wanting to sleep but feeling too awake and nervous.  
  
He nearly jumped out of his skin when the door to his room opened unexpectedly.  
  
It was the three guards from before, and Lestrade got to his feet warily.  
  
“You’ve been summoned,” the short one said. “Move.”  
  
They directed him back down the long hallway, past the bathroom and past several more doors, rifles trained on him unerringly. Lestrade worked to keep his pace steady and his back straight. Where ever they were taking him, whatever they were going to do, he could survive it.  
  
The guards stopped him outside an unmarked door that looked identical to the dozens of others they’d passed. When it opened to reveal Mycroft Holmes, Lestrade felt himself grow that much tenser. The room beyond Mycroft was like something out of a spy movie; an entire wall was taken up with TV monitors, all currently showing static. Facing the wall was a chair and a desk, but besides that, the room was empty.  
  
“Come in,” Mycroft said, as though Lestrade had a choice about that. Warily, he stepped inside.  
The door clicked and locked behind him with a very final sound, and he did his best to keep his chin high and his face unafraid.  
  
“Good evening, Detective Inspector,” Mycroft said, his expression giving no hints about what was to come. Lestrade started a little at the mention of ‘evening’. God, how long had he been here?  
  
“Mycroft,” Lestrade said with a nod, folding his arms across his chest. “What am I doing here?”  
  
“Coming to an agreement with me,” Mycroft said. He gestured towards the chair. “Sit down, if you please.”  
  
“No thanks.”  
  
Mycroft sighed. “Very well, have it your way.”  
  
Lestrade flinched when Mycroft stepped forward, but the other man only circled him, slow and precise, the umbrella in his hand flicking back and forth almost like a tail. Lestrade felt a brief flush of embarrassment, wondering how he must look. He’d been wearing his work clothes for at least a day, sleeping in them too, and both his shirt and pants were rumpled beyond fixing. His bare feet sunk deep into the soft carpet, and he curled his toes self-consciously. It was stupid to feel embarrassed, of all things, but it was an instinctive reaction, especially with Mycroft looking as posh and well-pressed as ever.  
  
“You estimated that there were three dozen Met officers who knew that my brother was a suspect in your investigation,” Mycroft said from behind Lestrade, and it took all of Lestrade’s willpower not to whirl around. Worry made his stomach sink like a stone.  
  
“You were remarkably close, actually,” Mycroft continued. “But of the thirty-eight people who are aware of the connection between yourself and my brother, most of them have only ever seen that connection through the paperwork you’ve filed. That’s simple enough to change, and the human memory is so very fallible. Especially considering that there is already a file sitting in Scotland Yard saying that you brought Sherlock Holmes in for interrogation and released him after two hours, as he had a solid alibi for each of the murders.”  
  
Lestrade’s stomach lurched again, and he twisted around quickly to look at Mycroft. “They videotape interrogations,” he said, voice not as sure as he would have liked.  
  
“Computer errors do happen,” Mycroft said, smiling that horrible little smile of his. “The records for the entire day that my brother was to have been at Scotland Yard disappearing because of an ill-timed glitch would be unfortunate, but certainly believable. So, that leaves thirteen people who you spoke to about your investigation. That sort of face to face interaction is more difficult for people to forget, and so different measures will have to be taken.”  
  
Lestrade knew what Mycroft was doing, knew that he was trying to make Lestrade feel guilty for the actions Mycroft was about to take. It was a dirty, nasty tactic, and part of what made Lestrade hate it was that he knew it worked so well on him.  
  
“Two of those people are already on my payroll, so they’ll be easily convinced,” Mycroft said, continuing to circle, and Lestrade jerked around in alarm, feeling dizzy and nauseous.  
  
“What?! Who?!”  
  
“That would be telling,” Mycroft finally came to a stop at Lestrade’s shoulder. He nodded slightly at the wall of televisions. “Three more are in dire enough financial straits that they’ll likely accept any deal offered to them. The remaining eight, well…”  
  
As if Mycroft had given some hidden signal, the televisions all turned on simultaneously. Lestrade just barely kept himself from flinching and stepped a little closer to see the screens instead. It took a moment before he realized that they were the feeds from CCTV cameras, ones scattered all across London from the looks of things. He recognized the streets and shops visible in a few of them, but wasn’t sure why Mycroft was showing him this until he glanced at one screen in particular that was focused on an outdoor café and saw Sally Donovan.  
  
He felt the blood drain from his face.  
  
Eyes darting to the other screens, he searched the crowds of people in them until he saw his coworkers amongst the masses, oblivious to the fact that Big Brother was watching. There was Anderson waiting at the tube station. There was Park from forensics talking on her cell phone. There was Smitty having a smoke outside his flat.  
  
He was shaking, just a little, as he turned to face Mycroft.  
  
“Four today, the remaining four tomorrow or the day after, I think,” Mycroft said, gazing at the monitors like he was just idly people-watching. Like he wasn’t discussing murder.  
  
“No.”  
  
“Miss Donovan will contract a tragically fast-acting case of food poisoning,” Mycroft said as though Lestrade hadn’t spoken. “Mr. Smith will be killed when a driver loses control of his car and jumps the curb. The wiring in Mr. Anderson’s house hasn’t been updated for quite some time, and a fire will spark in his bedroom that prevents escape. Mrs. Park will be the unfortunate victim of a mugging gone wrong.”  
  
“You don’t—you can’t possibly have that kind of-”  
  
“My brother often says that I’m the British government,” Mycroft said in that same polite, friendly tone. “While that’s something of an overstatement, I do wield a considerable amount of power, Detective Inspector.”  
  
“And you-you’d kill eight innocent people to keep your brother out of jail?” Lestrade gestured wildly, feeling his grip on his temper slipping and his panic rising. No, no, Mycroft wasn’t supposed to target his friends, they were police officers, they should have been _safe_.  
  
“Nine,” Mycroft corrected. “You’ll also have gone missing. Your deceased coworkers will be unable to mention that Sherlock was the last person you spoke to, nor will they be around to recall that no one saw you bring him into the station.”  
  
Lestrade shook his head, his heart beating painfully quickly. “No, you can’t do this!”  
  
“I can. I am.”  
  
Something about that damnably calm tone was enough to make Lestrade see red, his fury sparking off like an explosion. He lunged at Mycroft, wanting nothing more than to smash his face in. Forget plans, forget being smart, he was going to beat Mycroft senseless and make a run for it. He’d escape, get outside, save everyone somehow, _somehow_ , he just had to get away _right now_.  
  
He’d expected Mycroft to yell for help. What he hadn’t expected was the taller man deftly stepping out of the way and twisting Lestrade’s arm around so hard that it brought tears to his eyes. Lestrade managed to wriggle out of his grasp by kicking him hard in the knee, but it was a close thing. Of course Mycroft couldn’t just be some useless upper-class twit. Of course he knew kung fu or something. Lestrade got through most fistfights by biting, clawing, and punching, and that had always served him well enough. But apparently it wouldn’t work here.  
  
Still, fury and fear drove him forward and he lunged at Mycroft again, aiming fists at his face and knees at his stomach. But Mycroft met him blow for blow, his umbrella catching Lestrade on the side of the jaw and knocking him backwards. Mycroft was calm in the face of Lestrade’s anger and panic, and that was what gave him the advantage. When Lestrade found himself bent over the desk, his arms pinned behind him roughly, it felt almost inevitable.  
  
“I really rather dislike physical confrontation,” Mycroft said, panting slightly. “Are you finished?”  
  
“Go to hell!” Lestrade growled out, kicking back futilely. Mycroft Holmes was much stronger than he looked. Sort of like his brother, come to think of it.  
  
“Your friends are going to die,” Mycroft said, putting more pressure on Lestrade’s arm. “I don’t care whether you want to blame Sherlock, or me, or yourself for it, because they’re going to die regardless. And you won’t get to die with them, Lestrade. I will keep you here and do with you whatever I see fit, and you’ll have to live with knowing that you could have saved them.” He pressed down a little harder for emphasis, making the muscles in Lestrade’s shoulders scream for mercy. “You know what you have to do.”  
  
 _You know what you have to do._ The words ricocheted through his head, snowballing their way through every other panicked thought he was having. He couldn’t look away from the monitors, from his fellow cops going about their days with no idea of what was about to happen. _You know what you have to do._  
  
Mycroft stepped back, and Lestrade slid off the desk and onto the floor. He didn’t have the strength to stand, his legs shaky and unreliable, so he just fell in a heap, propped against the side of the desk. He still couldn’t look away from the monitors.  
  
He’d been a fool. He’d been a fucking idiot to think that he could take on someone as powerful as Mycroft was and come out unscathed, and now it wasn’t just his life on the line. It wasn’t just him that Mycroft would destroy to keep his brother safe. And that meant Lestrade really didn’t have anything close to a choice, now.  
  
Lestrade closed his eyes. He wanted to cry, to scream. Instead, he just said, “Fine.”  
  
“What was that?” Mycroft said, in that same patient tone he always used.  
  
“I said ‘fine’.”  
  
Lestrade felt hard plastic on his face, and he opened his eyes to see Mycroft’s umbrella. The tip of it was on Lestrade’s chin, and it tilted his face up and to the side so that he was looking upwards at Mycroft.  
  
“I’m going to need a little more than that, Detective Inspector,” Mycroft said.  
  
“I’ll do whatever you want,” Lestrade said, feeling like something inside of him cracked a little when he said it. “I’ll say whatever you want. Anything. Just don’t hurt them.”  
***  
Lestrade felt numb. Entirely, completely numb. As the guards walked him back to his cell, there were no thoughts of running, or fighting, or even telling them all to go fuck themselves. His mind felt flat and grey, and he mostly focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Breathing in and out. Mycroft walked beside him, one hand on his elbow as if to guide him along. Like there was anyplace Lestrade could wander that Mycroft wouldn’t eventually find him.  
  
He was a bought cop, now. Was this how it felt? Christ, no wonder Hancock had looked so broken down all those years ago. Lestrade felt like he’d gained a hundred pounds all at once, the weight too much to carry.  
  
Sherlock was leaning against the wall outside his room, arms crossed and long legs taking up half the hallway. He took one look at Lestrade and then glared at Mycroft like his older brother had unexpectedly kicked him in the shin.  
  
“What did you do?” Sherlock demanded.  
  
“You’re a free man, congratulations,” Lestrade said dully, profoundly uninterested in watching the two of them squabble. He wanted to sleep. He wanted not to wake up.  
  
“What did you _do_?” Sherlock repeated, glaring at Mycroft.  
  
“I solved the problem that you created,” Mycroft answered, voice steely. One of his thugs opened the door to Lestrade’s room, and Lestrade went in without a fight this time. “You’re welcome.”  
  
“What did he do?” Sherlock asked, following Lestrade in despite Mycroft’s irritated huff. Lestrade sat wearily down in one of the chairs and didn’t respond.  
  
“You’re going to be locked in there if you don’t leave, Sherlock,” Mycroft said.  
  
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “You’ll be back in approximately ten minutes, I’m hardly worried.”  
  
Mycroft didn’t respond, simply turning on his heel and walking out of the room. The door locked behind him, and Lestrade stared up at Sherlock, too hollowed out to bother with being wary. Sherlock was staring down at him, hands on his hips. When he spoke, all he said was “How?”  
  
“He said he’d kill everyone that I mentioned you to,” Lestrade said, running his hands through his hair and mussing it further. His voice was toneless and slightly raspy. “Eight people would be dead if I didn’t agree.”  
  
“…that’s it?” Sherlock asked, incredulous, and Lestrade looked up at him with equal amounts of incredulity. Sherlock had a faintly disgusted look on his face as he continued, “But that’s so…so common! So predictable! And sloppy, sloppier than I’ve seen Mycroft in years.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Lestrade said in the even, measured tones that everyone at the Met knew signaled an eminent explosion, “that I’m not being entertaining enough for you, Sherlock. I’ve been distracted with keeping my coworkers alive.”  
  
“Then again, I suppose it makes sense,” Sherlock said, pacing and mumbling to himself as if Lestrade hadn’t spoken at all. “You’ve come the closest to actually catching me so far. You nearly had me arrested, Mycroft’s been panicked ever since.”  
  
 _This_ was Mycroft panicking? Mycroft had been so cold and calm throughout the entire affair that ice wouldn’t have melted on him and he could have balanced a cup of tea on his head without spilling a drop. Lestrade just shook his head, that horrid grey feeling edging back into him, and asked, “You’ve been arrested before, what are you talking about? And if I’d brought you in for questioning, you’d have just clammed up until your brother came and got you. I don’t-”  
  
“Oh, I’d have probably told you the complete truth if you’d actually gotten me to the station,” Sherlock said, waving his hand dismissively.  
  
“…what?” Lestrade’s tone was entirely flat, but the grey feeling was gone. Replacing it was slow, building, roiling anger, because Lestrade knew whatever was said next would not pacify him at all.  
  
“I hate being bored,” Sherlock said, shrugging. “And life has been chokingly dull since I stopped using cocaine. If I was put on trial, I’d have an endless stream of people to toy with. I could see if I could convince a judge and jury that my first confession was coerced. Even if I was found guilty, there’d be the escape from jail to keep me occupied.” Sherlock spread his arms, a gesture of ‘you see?’ and added, “I’d never be bored again.”  
  
Lestrade sat for a moment, digesting that. The reason he was here, the reason Mycroft had needed to snatch him off the street and embroil Lestrade in this nightmare, was because Sherlock didn’t have the sense that God gave an artichoke and would have confessed everything he’d done to avoid being ‘bored.’  
  
“I see,” Lestrade said, voice calm. Three seconds later, he was on his feet and ramming Sherlock into the wall, screaming incoherently about how the gangly bastard had ruined his life. His fists battered the body beneath him, feet lashing out to slam hard against muscle and bone. Sherlock, far from being surprised, gave as good as he got, and Lestrade felt knuckles crack across his cheekbone. That only spurred him on further.  
  
The world faded away for a brief, blissful time, nothing but adrenaline and animal instinct, tooth and claw. Sherlock looked positively delighted, eyes wide and manic.  
  
By the time Mycroft opened to door five minutes later, the two of them were on the floor, having bounced each other off of walls and the furniture several times over. Sherlock had his arms wrapped around Lestrade’s head and his knee was digging into the older man’s stomach. Lestrade had his teeth sunk into Sherlock’s wrist and was doing his best to bash in his ribs. They were both bleeding from a few scrapes and were going to have some magnificently ugly bruises. Sherlock’s nose was gushing blood and Lestrade could feel his left eye starting to swell shut.  
  
Mycroft’s thugs pulled Lestrade off of Sherlock, two of them holding him in place while the policeman was still screaming abuse and kicking at the air where Sherlock should have been. Rage was a comfortable, safe emotion; rage blotted everything else out. His rage was interrupted, though, as Mycroft stepped forward and grabbed his chin.  
  
“Enough, Inspector.”  
  
Lestrade just snarled at him and continued tossing insults at Sherlock regarding his parentage. Sherlock was just grinning, still sitting on the floor, his lower jaw covered in the blood from his nose.  
  
“Enough!” Mycroft shook Lestrade like a man might shake a disobedient dog. “Calm down, or you’ll be sedated again.”  
  
That was enough to force Lestrade to reign in his anger, and he unclenched his fists with some effort. He was panting, though, cheeks flushed with blood and his nostrils flaring like a bull’s. His lips were drawn back into a snarl, and he growled out, “Maybe if someone had bothered to knock some sense into your brother before this, none of us would be here right now!”  
  
“Well, _you_ certainly wouldn’t be here,” Sherlock said, looking far too smug for a man covered in his own blood.  
  
“Be quiet,” Mycroft ordered over his shoulder, shooting Sherlock a tight-lipped, angry look. He turned back to Lestrade. “I’m prepared to release you, provided you’re still feeling agreeable?”  
  
Lestrade just nodded, teeth grinding against each other. _Hold on to that anger,_ he ordered himself. _Hold tight with both hands._ Because without that rage, that righteous indignation, reality would start creeping in, and then…  
  
“Out loud, please,” Mycroft said, and when Lestrade didn’t answer, the men holding him gripped a little tighter.  
  
“Sherlock Holmes has an alibi for all of the murders,” Lestrade said, the words like poison on his tongue. “I let him go home yesterday after questioning him for two hours.”  
  
“And?”  
  
Lestrade closed his eyes, because he knew what Mycroft wanted. “And after talking to him, I don’t think he’s responsible for the murders anyway.”  
  
“Because?”  
  
Fuck this. Fuck him. Lestrade’s eyes snapped open and he answered, “Because he’s not a vigilante, and any vigilante could tell you that Sherlock deserves to be one of the victims.”  
  
Sherlock just laughed, and practically slithered past Mycroft towards Lestrade, getting far too close to his face as he did. “I like you,” he murmured, almost to himself, breath feathering across Lestrade’s cheek. “You could be interesting for a while. Like a rat in a maze.”  
  
Lestrade was silent, staring up at Sherlock with no idea at all what to say. And then, just as abruptly and strangely as it had begun, the spell was broken and Sherlock turned away with a dismissive sniff.  
  
“Try not to overthrow any small countries while I’m showering, Mycroft,” he said, striding out of the room without a backwards glance.  
  
“I’d say your brother was mad as a hatter,” Lestrade said after a silent moment, “but that’d be an insult to hatters.”  
  
“Yes, well,” Mycroft said, giving a minute shake of his head. He nodded to someone outside of the room, and a woman walked in carrying a familiar coat and a bundle of items. The men holding Lestrade let go of him, and Lestrade reached out to take the bundle. It was his coat. His shoes and socks and belt. His wallet, complete with his warrant card and the tenner he had left over from ordering carryout the other night. All the trappings of authority and normality that Lestrade hadn’t even realized he’d missed until he had them back.  
  
His hands were shaking as he laced up his shoes. The coat was full of good, familiar smells that nearly brought tears to his eyes. When he faced Mycroft again, he almost felt normal again.  
  
Almost.  
  
Because looking at Mycroft reminded him of everything that was wrong, and now he didn’t even have that fortifying wave of anger to cling to. He wondered if Mycroft had planned this all along.  
  
Mycroft just looked at him and nodded. “Come along, Lestrade.”  
  
Like an obedient dog, Lestrade followed. The men and the woman stayed behind, and Lestrade was on Mycroft’s heels as they strode past the bathroom and the door to the horrible room of CCTV monitors. They kept walking, the hallway seeming to stretch on forever, the doors all eerily similar. Or maybe that was just a trick of Lestrade’s frazzled, weary mind, because quite suddenly they were standing in front of a lift.  
  
Mycroft pressed his thumb against a small indentation in the wall. There was a faint, mechanical whirring sound before the doors opened with an all-too-cheerful ding! Mycroft gestured for Lestrade to step inside before following him in. The lurch as they began to move downward set his nerves even more on edge.  
  
It was too small inside the lift. Lestrade’s shoulder brushed against Mycroft’s with every move he made. He could have huddled in the corner, as far away from the other man as he could get, but his pride wouldn’t quite let him. After a few seconds of unbearable silence, Lestrade reached into his wallet and fumbled until he pulled out his warrant card.  
  
“Here,” he said, thrusting it at Mycroft. “Might as well have this. You bought it, after all.”  
  
Mycroft looked at him, eyebrow arched. “You should keep that, you’ll be needing it. I anticipate a long, fruitful career at Scotland Yard for you.”  
  
Lestrade didn’t bother to hide his shudder. “If you keep your brother on a tighter leash, we won’t ever have to see each other again, which is really what I want.”  
  
Mycroft just chuckled. “How does the song go? You can’t always get what you want.” The lift doors slid open to reveal some kind of underground parking garage. There was a sleek, black car waiting for them, the windows tinted and the engine idling. “This will take you home.”  
  
“I’ll walk.”  
  
With a sigh, Mycroft turned to face him and caught Lestrade’s chin in a surprisingly strong grip between his thumb and forefinger. It made Lestrade bristle, made him want to put his back up and hiss like a cat. Instead, he just tried to jerk his chin away, failed, and glared sullenly at a point over Mycroft’s shoulder.  
  
“Gregory,” Mycroft said, and Lestrade flinched. Hearing Mycroft say his name felt unpleasantly intimate. “You’ll find this will all be much easier to deal with if you just do as you’re told.”  
  
“And if you wanted someone who’ll roll over on command,” Lestrade said, pouring the last bit of steel he had in him into the words, “you should have gotten a dog.”  
  
Mycroft smiled, bizarrely enough, a strange little smile that did nothing to reassure Lestrade. “Nonetheless, you’ll take the car.”  
  
Lestrade jerked his chin out of Mycroft’s hand and stalked towards the car, fists clenched. Over his shoulder, he called, with bravado he didn’t feel, “If your brother kills another person, I’m killing him myself. Might want to tell him that.” Then he slid inside the car and slammed the door shut.  
  
There was a thick wall of tinted glass separating Lestrade from the driver, and he could only see a vague outline of the person. Fine. Good. Lestrade was hardly in the mood to make small talk with Mycroft’s minions. He barely even noticed when the doors locked around him. Instead, he just leaned his head against the window, body sinking into the rich leather seat as the car began to pull away.  
  
Mycroft Holmes leaned against his umbrella like it was a walking stick, watching the car until it pulled out of sight.  
  
Lestrade was actually grateful for the tinted windows as the car emerged from the underground parking garage. He had a feeling the sunlight would have blinded him. He blinked anyway, though, staring at the streets around him with a cold sense of horror. Central London. He’d been held smack dab in the middle of the city.  
  
Sure enough, he even recognized the building that he’d been held in. The Wentsworth building had been built as government offices and was mostly inhabited by bureaucrats and paralegals, to Lestrade’s knowledge. There certainly wasn’t anything in the files about it being used to hold prisoners.  
  
Mycroft had meant for him to see this, Lestrade realized. One more show of power. ‘I can hold you hostage in the middle of London with no one the wiser.’ Lestrade let his head thunk against the window and squeezed his eyes closed.  
  
It was, according to the clock in the car, half past ten in the morning when they pulled up outside of Lestrade’s house. It was a tiny little place, all he could afford on his salary. Lestrade stared dumbly at it, because it felt to him as though at least six lifetimes had passed since he’d been here last. The driver unlocked the doors, a not so subtle signal for Lestrade to get the hell out already.  
  
Stumbling onto the curb, Lestrade was motionless until the car pulled away. Only then was he able to summon the energy to reach into the pocket of his coat and fish out his house key. His body was moving on autopilot, his mind barely feeling functional at all.  
  
Inside, the house was exactly the same as he’d left it. There was the empty takeout carton sitting on the counter. There was the stack of unsorted mail on the table. His shoes were still in a tidy line by the door. So what was different, why did he feel so uneasy?  
  
Finally he spotted it, the thing that didn’t belong. It was a small slip of paper no bigger than a business card sitting on the coffee table. Bile rising in his throat, Lestrade stepped forward and picked it up.  
  
‘Behave. I’ll be watching.’  
-MH  
  
Lestrade crumpled the card in his fist, throat feeling so tight he could barely breathe. Mechanically, he put one foot in front of the other, walking towards his bedroom without really having a destination in mind. He didn’t even bother turning on the lights when he reached it, just sat down on his bed, the mattress lumpy and familiar.  
  
He took a deep breath in.  
  
A deep breath out.  
  
And for the first time in ten years, Lestrade let himself cry.  
***  
Miles away, Mycroft sipped his tea and watched the Detective Inspector through the hidden cameras that he’d taken the liberty of installing in the man’s home. His face was impassive as he watched the policeman curl into a ball on his bed, shoulders shaking.  
  
It wouldn’t do to become sentimental, not when things were still in such a precarious state.  
  
He switched his attention to Sherlock. His brother was back in his flat, sprawled out amongst the clutter of his experiments and his papers. The feed from his computer indicated that Sherlock was busily hacking into the Met’s personnel files, doubtlessly to glean more information on Lestrade.  
  
Well. Lestrade wouldn’t hold Sherlock’s attention for long, most likely. His brother was still like a child in so many ways, flitting from one shiny new thing to the next with no regard for the broken toys he left behind. But if the policeman could keep Sherlock distracted from his more…troubling urges long enough for Mycroft to devise a plan, than it would count as time well spent.  
  
Lestrade might prove to be very useful yet, Mycroft decided


End file.
